You could call the title above clickbait. I always read Dana Milbank so I can’t say it worked on me though, but it may have gotten others to click on the piece.
The title above appeared on The Washington Post main page but it originally led to a column originally titled “Opinion: Republicans just proved critical race theory correct” but it was changed to reflect the title on the main page.
Dana Milbank sometimes writes columns that are satirical and deliciously snarky though more frequently he writes straight opinion pieces on serious topics.
Criticize it as clickbait or not, in this column the front page title was more catchy than the first title of the column.
The column focuses on how Josh Hawley has set the GOP agenda. Milbank describes Hawley as “the man who pumped his fist in solidarity with the people who attacked the Capitol” lest anyone forget who he is. Milbank offers these quotes from the GOP senator:
- “Critical theory is, in fact, very real. It is very influential. And it appears to have become the animating ideology of this administration.”
- “President Biden is nominating for federal office individuals who do not share a view of America as a good and decent place. (His nominees) “believe that this is a country founded in racism and shot through with corruption.”
- “In our American flag, they see propaganda, and in our family businesses, they see white supremacy.” (Democrats) “allow no room for merit, for experience, or for grace in our life together. They pit Whiteness and Blackness against each other in a manner that reduces every American, no matter their character or creed, to their racial identity alone.”
- (Democrats think) “that subjects like mathematics are inherently racist, that the Christian faith is oppressive” and “that the nuclear family perpetuates racism.”
Milbank goes on to write:
Looking straight into the TV camera above the Senate floor, Hawley said that Biden’s animating ideology tells children that “your dreams” are “unjust” and that “your family” are “oppressors.”
Milbank explains how just yesterday the Republicans proved the opposite of their contention and that in fact there is systemic racism which was the original title of his column:
The irony, of course, is that Republicans are now proving that systemic racism exists — and they, along with Fox News, are the primary offenders. With their united stand against the voting-rights bill and their united votes against Ahuja the (Indian American woman nominated to run the Office of Personnel Management) on the bogus justification of critical race theory, they’re the ones reducing Americans “to their racial identity alone,” as Hawley put it. The Proud Boys who attacked the Capitol must be filled with pride anew.
The Republican leadership’s opposition to the voting-rights bill was so rote that they didn’t bother dividing up their talking points.
Milbank ends his column with the sentence used in the front page title fleshing it out with new words:
Republicans will instead focus on the real federal issue: accusing the Biden administration of opposing the flag, family businesses, merit, grace, Christianity, your dreams, your family and America.
